Who ya got to replace the current crop of idiots?

Better get organizing and fundraising soon.

You know they're visiting those elementary school PTA/PTOs now.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/18/2010 01:30AM by Thomas More.

The Revolution is on. Sandy and Patty have arrived.

See ya Stu, Kathy, Janie and Tessie. You have destroyed this school district.

We will take it from here.

game over Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Revolution is on. Sandy and Patty have
> arrived.
>
> See ya Stu, Kathy, Janie and Tessie. You have
> destroyed this school district.
>
> We will take it from here.

Do not forget Storck, he needs to go along with the rest of the ass holes.

How about you, Tom? You could straighten that place up in 15 minutes!

say Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> How about you, Tom? You could straighten that place up in 15 minutes!<

Your kind words make an old man blush. But there are others more qualified than you humble servant.

game over Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Revolution is on. Sandy and Patty have arrived.<

Amen & alleluia
>
> See ya Stu, Kathy, Janie and Tessie.<

Tessie's already announce she won't seek re-election. That race will be for an open seat.

Janie supports a segregated school system. Harry Byrd, the creator of Massive Resistance, would be proud of her definitely all rich private,nearly all white academy aka Langley High. How can Faifax Democrats endorse a segregationist in 2011?

They all supported Gatehouse 2 even though our schools are falling apart and they all look the other way while Dale and Company pad the scores with VGLA.

They are toast.

You would have to be a moron if you can't unseat any of them.

Fairfax County Democrats rave about diversity, but they don't want their precious pumpkins to go to school with students who have darker skin or lower socioeconomic levels than their families.

Some of the FCPS schools (like Waynewood Elementary, just north of Fort Hunt Park along the GW Parkway) are run like private schools. And the school board/principal allows the parents to say how things will be.

Quote

Fairfax County Democrats rave about diversity, but they don't want their precious pumpkins to go to school with students who have darker skin or lower socioeconomic levels than their families.

i get tired of hearing this argument because it's just flat wrong. what i want is to spread the ESL kids across all schools. if we did that, then no school would be more than 10% ESL. just don't take my kid and put him in an 85% ESL shithole.

Liz Bradsher is the one that needs to get the hell out of there. All she seems to know how to do is spend (taxpayers) money on new schools.

Liz Bradsher=budget deficit.

I will extend my vote to someone who will get rid of Chinese, Japanese, Spanish immersion programs. If you want to immerse your child in another cultural experience... MOVE there! I don't need to pay for your precious snowflake to sit in a class with 8 kids speaking another language all day while mine sits in a classroom with 32 kids because he speaks English!

Also, if you would like for your precious snowflake to speak another language at the elementary school level, drive your precious snowflake to private language lessons after school. NOT my problem.

FLES+immersion=budget fail Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I will extend my vote to someone who will get rid
> of Chinese, Japanese, Spanish immersion programs.
> If you want to immerse your child in another
> cultural experience... MOVE there! I don't need
> to pay for your precious snowflake to sit in a
> class with 8 kids speaking another language all
> day while mine sits in a classroom with 32 kids
> because he speaks English!
>
> Also, if you would like for your precious
> snowflake to speak another language at the
> elementary school level, drive your precious
> snowflake to private language lessons after
> school. NOT my problem.


Amen. America's youth communicates in fragments such as "wut u doin l8r 2day" and "c u l8r k thx". I feel as though the emphasis should be placed on English first so that our kids will turn out a little less stupid. If you want your kid to speak another language, pay for it yourself.

-------------------------------------------------------
> Fairfax County Democrats rave about diversity, but
> they don't want their precious pumpkins to go to
> school with students who have darker skin or lower
> socioeconomic levels than their families.
>
papashango replied:
> i get tired of hearing this argument because it's
> just flat wrong. what i want is to spread the ESL
> kids across all schools. if we did that, then no
> school would be more than 10% ESL. just don't
> take my kid and put him in an 85% ESL shithole.

Some may claim that they don't mind diversity. Then along comes the South Lakes High School redistricting controversy, which proved that most affluent, socially ambitious Fairfax parents like diversity only in theory. They approve of diversity for other areas of the county with less powerful school board members.

Papashango has an interesting idea. Why not take the ESOL kids and put them in a 1-3 year long English Immersion program? As it stands now, either ESOL kids/parents are effectively left out of things in a school that's <10% ESOL (and the ESOL teacher probably has to deal with a huge range of abilities and ages) or native English speakers get ignored/underserved in an environment that's >70% ESOL.

I don't know how much extra it'd cost in terms of transportation, etc., but as long as English Immersion doesn't become codespeak for "throw Hispanics in here to rot," it's an idea to consider.

Chinese and other immersion? It's a puffery for some of the rich parents. Let the schools host language classes at low or no cost to whoever's holding the class, and then parents can pay $395 or whatever so the teacher gets paid.

I'd rather see band all over the place than Chinese immersion at 5% of the schools.

who you know Wrote:
> Some may claim that they don't mind diversity.
> Then along comes the South Lakes High School
> redistricting controversy, which proved that most
> affluent, socially ambitious Fairfax parents like
> diversity only in theory. They approve of
> diversity for other areas of the county with less
> powerful school board members.

What are you talking about? The redistricting went ahead as planned and more White and Asian kids are now at South Lakes. Wasn't that the goal?

A few of the snot-nosed Madison families moved to avoid the redistricting (big loss) but most of the affected families went along with the change.

Xango Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> who you know Wrote:
> > Some may claim that they don't mind diversity.
>
> > Then along comes the South Lakes High School
> > redistricting controversy, which proved that
> most
> > affluent, socially ambitious Fairfax parents
> like
> > diversity only in theory. They approve of
> > diversity for other areas of the county with
> less
> > powerful school board members.
>
> What are you talking about? The redistricting
> went ahead as planned and more White and Asian
> kids are now at South Lakes. Wasn't that the
> goal?
>
> A few of the snot-nosed Madison families moved to
> avoid the redistricting (big loss) but most of the
> affected families went along with the change.

The Madison Islanders were a small set of bystanders dragged in solely to ensure that it didn't look like a wholesale demographic shift South -> North (westfield->oakton->south lakes), to protect the Reston residents who attend Langley and mask performance problems at Hughes

The majority of land marked as Madison was, is and will probably remain undeveloped, part of the comprehensive plan's strategic low density buffer designed to stop Reston and Tysons creeping into merger, only zoned at 2 acres/home and unlikely to be built out anytime soon.

The established communities were so small as to make no practical difference to the overall numbers - it was entirely political

The whole thing was a scam from start to finish which didn't even properly take into account the impact that the weihle condoplex will have.

The islanders were right to feel as if they had been shafted for no good reason.

game over Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The Revolution is on. Sandy and Patty have
> arrived.



Yea, yea, blah blah.... these two ladies have their own warped agendas. They are no different from when Kathy, Liz, et al were new. If Sandy has her way, we will carry our kids to school at 10:00am, spoon feed them their lunch, they will have no homework and the schools will have no rules. Little princes and princesses will only do what they want and their select group of friends will plan for us all.

Kathy and Liz (along with Stu and Janie) just reguritate Dale's party line. They never ask tough questions and just go along.

The students and parents deserve better leadership.

Time will tell how Patty and Sandy do-let's see if they have the backbone to challenge the current regime.

It isn't just the students and parents that deserve better leadership - it is the taxpayers as a whole in Fairfax County that deserve better leadership. For example, if they don't stop the build of another 950 student school near Liberty Middle during these tough economic times, than they are effecting all taxpayers not just the students and parents. Somebody has to have the guts to put the brakes on until the economy improves or we are all going to be broke.

deja Wrote:
> The Madison Islanders were a small set of
> bystanders dragged in solely to ensure that it
> didn't look like a wholesale demographic shift
> South -> North (westfield->oakton->south lakes),
> to protect the Reston residents who attend Langley
> and mask performance problems at Hughes
>
> The majority of land marked as Madison was, is and
> will probably remain undeveloped, part of the
> comprehensive plan's strategic low density buffer
> designed to stop Reston and Tysons creeping into
> merger, only zoned at 2 acres/home and unlikely to
> be built out anytime soon.
>
> The established communities were so small as to
> make no practical difference to the overall
> numbers - it was entirely political
>
> The whole thing was a scam from start to finish
> which didn't even properly take into account the
> impact that the weihle condoplex will have.
>
> The islanders were right to feel as if they had
> been shafted for no good reason.

Blah, blah, blah.

More BS from the same crowd that said there'd be "massive resistance" to the redistricting and FCPS would shut down South Lakes by 2010. Didn't happen. Poor, silly CAPSters.

I am not a CAPster. However, I have to applaud them as they may not have won regarding South Lakes, but they seem to be gaining momentum through sheer persistence. Fairfax County residents are fed up which is evidenced by the fact that Patty and Sandy are now on the Board. Persistence pays off. Too much tax dollars are being spent throughout the County transporting kids far from their homes and through all of this redistricting. The redistricting may have been the priority of the past but focus needs to be placed now on saving money and not cutting programs or laying off teachers. Liz, Stu, etc. can't seem to see the bigger picture or think outside of the old box.

EnoughSpending Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Too much tax dollars are
> being spent throughout the County transporting
> kids far from their homes and through all of this
> redistricting. The redistricting may have been
> the priority of the past but focus needs to be
> placed now on saving money and not cutting
> programs or laying off teachers. Liz, Stu, etc.
> can't seem to see the bigger picture or think
> outside of the old box.

I could never get too upset about redistricting the "Madison Island" area to Hughes/South Lakes, which are much closer than either Thoreau and Madison. I do understand the concern with continuing to send students from north Reston or Herndon all the way to Langley. It was a waste of money to expand Langley, which should have a smaller enrollment.

Stu Gibson may have his own parochial agenda, but at least he challenged the decision to build the South County middle school when there is extra capacity in other schools in SE Fairfax.

I am not sure what having Patty and Sandy on the board proves other than that they won their special elections.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/25/2010 10:00AM by Mozart.

Both Patty and Sandy have said they want to focus on budget and providing budget leadership. Patty has stressed she wants to examine budget innovations - not just budget cuts. Of course, only time will tell if they keep their word, but at least they appear to be focusing on something other than redistricting and might actually have new ideas.

You are right about Stu on the issue that he challenged the decision to build the South County Middle school when there is extra capacity in other schools in Fairfax. The same holds true for the 950 student school proposed by Liberty Middle -- there is extra capacity in other schools in that area too. Let's just hope for Fairfax County Taxpayers sake that history doesn't repeat itself and that this time they decide it isn't the right time to build another new school when they are cutting programs and possibly laying off more teachers.

The problem with Fairfax County parents is that they want what they want for their own children. If they have teens, they want later start times. If they have elementary students, they want to keep band and strings. If they have sports kids they want to keep freshman sports. If their kids are not getting straight A's they want to change to the grading system.

No one is looking at the system as a whole. Nothing is Free! Old and new board members alike have to stop thinking just about what they want and start looking at what NEEDS to be done.

You hit the nail right on the head! The parents in Fairfax County have become almost spoiled by all of the extra programs and services here. Whatever happened to focusing in on providing good solid education in basic skills like reading, writing and math?

ALL taxpayers are paying into this system, not just parents of current students.
I certainly hope they will start focusing in on only what absolutely NEEDS to be done. The extra programs, fluff and redistricting cost the taxpayers dearly.

Why is redistricting lumped in with expenses like FLES programs?

Don't take this as support for any and all redistrictings - just not sure why a redistricting couldn't be cost-neutral or save money over the long term. There are obviously some added expenses in the short term if you have multiple buses taking juniors and seniors to one school and the younger students to another.

Redistricting takes children farther away from their homes. The longer distance that is driven, the more gas costs are incurred (which are probably significant if you consider the gas a bus must use compared to a car), wear and tear on the buses tires, maintenance, etc. I believe I read somewhere that FCPS has one of the largest bus fleets in the nation now. Take, for example, if they build the new school by Liberty Middle. The areas they are thinking of busing those children from are quite a distance away from where they are thinking of building a new school. Has anybody factored in that cost? Not only will it cost more to transport them, but surely they will also have to add more buses to the fleet to make that possible. Buses cannot be a cheap purchase. Taxpayers are paying for all of that. Then take a look at the boundary maps for the schools countywide and imagine how much that is costing the taxpayers with additional buses, cost of gas for the buses, wear and tear on the buses. There must be an insurance cost as well based on number of buses.

Also, more staff have to be hired to drive the buses so there are more staff costs. There is also likely an administrative cost in that as the number of buses increase, there is probably more staff needed to coordinate their routes, perform maintenance, etc. It all adds up.

Redistricting could take a child further from his or her home (for example, if Clifton Elementary is closed and students in Clifton are sent to a new school near Liberty MS) or send him closer to his or her house (for example, if a student in the old "Madison Island" now attends Hughes MS rather than Thoreau). It all depends on the particular decisions.

I think there is likely plenty of redistricting ahead. The School Board is just trying to come up with new committee structures that will give it more cover if and when they do the next big one.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/26/2010 08:03PM by Mozart.

That could be. Either way the redistricting is costing taxpayers money. It would be interesting to know what the true cost of a redistricting is to the County. Everytime they have a meeting about the topic, or their Communications Committee develops and sends information out about it, or staff has to transfer records to new schools for each student, or their demographer spends time analyzing everything, or facilities puts together reports -- those are all basically salary hours that are essentially getting billed to taxpayers. I don't know if redistricting is right or wrong, I just know it must cost a lot of money and they are already in a deficit. They need to re-prioritize their energy to fiscal accountability versus redistricting. In the case of the new school near Liberty Middle and Clifton, they want taxpayers to believe it is just about cost of construction or renovating buildings, but it is really about a lot more.

I have seen where Pat Herrity has written some articles on fiscal accountability and the School Board. I wish someone from his staff would put out something on what the true cost of each redistricting is. Would love to know what that cost is to the County taxpayer.

Is the new FCPS school board member the same Sandy Evans from the SLEEP group that tried to bully everyone in the county into adopting entirely new school schedules that would benefit only a small (and already very privileged) section of FCPS high school students?

I did not find that group's strategies and tactics to be professional, intelligent, or attractive. They have very limited thinking skills.

EnoughSpending Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> I have seen where Pat Herrity has written some
> articles on fiscal accountability and the School
> Board. I wish someone from his staff would put
> out something on what the true cost of each
> redistricting is. Would love to know what that
> cost is to the County taxpayer.

Herrity's just another pol where the schools are concerned. He lobbied hard to build South County middle and said at same time crumbling West Springfield should get renovated.

What happened - South County getting built now and WS is still falling apart and won't get any repairs for years to come.

Sandy from SLEEP group? Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Is the new FCPS school board member the same Sandy
> Evans from the SLEEP group that tried to bully
> everyone in the county into adopting entirely new
> school schedules that would benefit only a small
> (and already very privileged) section of FCPS high
> school students?
>
> I did not find that group's strategies and tactics
> to be professional, intelligent, or attractive.
> They have very limited thinking skills.


Yes it is! This women does not care about FCPS, she cares about her own agenda!

Surels--Please elaborate. What is the agenda of this Sandy Evans? How has she treated others as she made her way to the school board arena?

Maybe Sandy Evans put Surels to SLEEP because Surels had no valid response.

Nothing will change. Here's why, partisan politicians. As long as most voters do what the teachers and administrators want, and elect democrats, we can expect them to continue to do what the democrat school board has always done. Democrats go along with whatever staff wants, every flaky new program and every redistricting. Democrats want more money to play with so they will continue to demand more money from the BOS and taxpayers. As long as most voters in FC vote democrat, you will continue to get what they give you.

I am no fan of FCPS. I am very cynical of why Langley is such a great school and Mt. Vernon is at the bottom of the pit. Why shouldn't each school be the same in this county?

As for special programs, unless every kid has a chance to be in say, Foreign Language Immersion, why have the program at all? FCPS is very un-democratic in administering their programs. The wealthy and very poor get the special stuff, and the bottom falls out of the middle.

Duchess Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I am no fan of FCPS. I am very cynical of why
> Langley is such a great school and Mt. Vernon is
> at the bottom of the pit. Why shouldn't each
> school be the same in this county?
>
> As for special programs, unless every kid has a
> chance to be in say, Foreign Language Immersion,
> why have the program at all? FCPS is very
> un-democratic in administering their programs. The
> wealthy and very poor get the special stuff, and
> the bottom falls out of the middle.


Socialist!!! Socialist!!!!

In agreement with Duchess.

Some FCPS schools are run like private schools--Langley HS, Waynewood Elementary, off the GW Parkway, are two examples. The parents put enormous pressure on the staff or other parents to tow the line and do things THEIR way. It was very clear which parents were "in charge" and getting their way. Very scary mothers.

These are public schools. The parents are not in charge of making decisions that concern other people's children. I don't trust schools that are managed in that manner. And the people who see these things and should speak out are too intimidated to.

The difference between Democrats and Republicans is that when a Democrat has a problem they ask "Who can fix this FOR ME?" Republicans ask "How can I fix this myself?" It sounds like parents at Langley don't expect FCPS to fix problems for them, they try and fix it themselves. It's called parenting.

The only program the Board is going to cut back on this year is paying into the teacher's retirement fund. This is after the teacher's have been on pay freezes for 2 years already. The County is getting ready to increase your taxes too. You can talk all you want about Langley vs. Mt. Vernon or Democrat and Republican, but the reality is that when our good teachers start leaving the County because they can't afford to live here and because no one is showing them any respect, well then see what happens to the schools. This is what the current Board Members are doing for FCPS.

The reason they don't prioritize the teacher's retirement over some of the current extra unequitable programs (like foreign immersion) is the same old formula. The Board Members terms are 4 years. They only care about how they look within those 4 years as it will effect whether or not THEY get re-elected. The next election for them is a close 19 months away. They don't care about something that isn't going to be an issue in their term so they push it off for the taxpayers to get saddled with later.

Same thing for the new school they want to build near Liberty Middle. It will be on the ballot in November 2011. People like the idea of new schools. What they aren't telling you is that they won't be able to afford all the other costs of the that school (hiring staff, buses, fuel, maintenance,etc) without raising your taxes. They don't care though. They will get the voters to approve the bond and then run to the County Supervisors again saying they don't have enough money. Taxpayers in Fairfax are basically uninformed idiots that run around like puppets.